By IANS,
Mumbai : The Maharashtra Public Service Commission (MPSC) came under fire from political parties for “carelessness”, due to which it lost valuable computerised data of around 300,000 candidates who were to appear for the MPSC exams.
A virus reportedly attacked the MPSC’s main server and wiped out all data of candidates, barely four days before the examinations scheduled for Sunday.
The MPSC has now directed students to resubmit the data by Thursday evening. Examination hall tickets would be issued Friday.
However, most political parties and candidates feel this is a tall order as many hopefuls do not possess several details required to fill the online forms. Students said it was difficult to log-in from many places.
Legislators cutting across party lines Wednesday demanded that the MPSC should postpone the examinations by at least a fortnight to enable aspirants complete relevant formalities and write their exams.
Parties like the Nationalist Congress Party, Shiv Sena, Republican Party of India, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, NGO Swabhiman Sanghatana and others castigated the MPSC for its callousness.
Political activists demonstrated outside the MPSC office in south Mumbai in support to the candidates.
They also raised questions about the MPSC failure to maintain a backup of the data.
The MPSC is to hold the exam on Sunday for two papers of 200 marks each, with negative marking for wrong answers.